This disclosure refers to automatic fault management systems of computer networks and specifically to the generation of Electronic Service Request packets which can seek and access remedial processes when faults occur.
Many recent systems and configurations have been developed for use in the detection of faults and inefficiencies of various computer systems and networks. Many of the earlier systems required the attendance of a field engineer who would isolate the fault or inadequacy, and then, after a trouble-shooting operation would replace a given printed circuit card, or change or patch-up certain of the programs which might be operating improperly. Today, rapid response expectations now require an automatic quick request for detection and response.
It is deemed most desirable in system networks using multiple platforms to have some sort of fault detection which can be sensed and reported to a remote station which can analyze the fault and immediately respond with corrective action.
Thus, by having a local monitor in each platform, there could be detected any software or hardware faults which would be logged into a Windows NT Event Log file and then packaged for transport to a central service unit. The present invention focuses on an Electronic Service Request Generator which can be used to initiate a special packet of information for transmittal to a remote communication service for analysis. This is accomplished with no need for additional software or need to re-compile programs when added workstations or new applications are utilized by users of the Automatic Fault Management System.
A specialized Formatter System is subsequently the recipient of the data exported from the subject ESR Generator and is described in a subsequent application.
An Electronic Service Request generator is provided as a multi-threaded Windows NT service that monitors a Windows NT Event Log for system and application errors occurring in many different platforms connected to and supporting many workstations. Error conditions which require attention from a Central Support Center are logged into the NT Event Log. This can possibly happen from several different sources. When a new entry to the NT Event Log is detected, a Watch thread wakes-up and queries the Event Log. The Event Log is then compared with certain ESR (Electronic Service Request) conditions which are specified in an ESR conditions database. If there is a match, the required messages are extracted from the Event Log by a Send thread. The Watch-Send thread sends information to a Formatter to format the information to meet special standards in a ESR packet format, which is specially suited to the Source Platform on which the error occurred.
The ESR generator module is a multi-threaded NT service. When this service is started, there are a sequence of functional steps which involve: reading the ESR conditions from the database; getting suitable Formatter information from the NT Registry; validating configuration information in the Registry; setting an automatic Winsock port number assignment which is stored in the Registry; executing the appropriate Formatter module; executing the application Event Log Watch thread; executing the System Log Watch thread; and executing the Send thread. This is accomplished without need for re-compiling the source code though new software/applications or hardware may be added to the system being monitored.